In video capture and display contexts, video quality and latency are important performance criteria. For example, imaging in automotive contexts is becoming more widespread such that vehicles are equipped with an outward looking camera that provides real time video for display to a driver in the cabin of the vehicle. The video can be displayed via a console and/or video content may replace all or portions of side and rear view mirrors with the motivation being to provide a better view for safety and, in some contexts, adding analytics for increased safety and/or an enhanced driving experience.
To attain high quality video in automotive and other contexts, especially low light environments and/or bad weather situations, motion compensated temporal filtering may be applied. However, current processing latency (i.e. >50 ms) is unacceptable as a vehicle moving at speed cannot tolerate such a latency due to safety and other concerns. For example, current global motion techniques require a full frame to be processed before temporal filtering can begin, which introduces significant processing lag (e.g., 2 or more frames) and latency such that the user is not viewing a current image. That is, the image on the screen does not represent the real world, which causes problems such as an unacceptable safety concern in the context of automotive applications.
It may be advantageous to improve temporal noise reduction processing by providing improved video quality and latency. It is with respect to these and other considerations that the present improvements have been needed. Such improvements may become critical as the desire to capture and display video data in a variety of contexts becomes more widespread.